


Murder Strut

by dracusfyre



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky on the catwalk, Entirely too many Zoolander references, M/M, Sam is also too sexy for his shirt, too sexy for his shirt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-02 17:12:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10949046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre/pseuds/dracusfyre
Summary: Bucky has fought Nazis, zombies, aliens, mutants, and on one memorable occasion, even punched out a bear.  He's lost count of how many times he's almost died and how many times he's saved the world.  So when terrorists threaten to bomb London Fashion Week, he categorically refuses to be defeated by eyeliner, fancy clothes, and fifty feet of catwalk.





	Murder Strut

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ellebeesknees for the amazing artwork that inspired this story, and then the three other beautiful pieces she created! She was a great partner throughout the writing process and I am so glad I had the opportunity to work with her. :) Click on the pictures to go to her amazing art blog!

[ ](http://ellebeesknees.tumblr.com/post/161504446407/lenadraws-another-of-my-contributions-for-the)

             

                “New mission assignments today, Buck.  Let’s go.”

                Bucky groaned and lifted his head from the kitchen counter to glare at Steve balefully. “Stop acting like it’s fucking Christmas, Steve.  It’s too early for you to be this cheerful.”

                “Put in your coffee IV and quit complaining,” Steve said with a smile, patting Bucky on the butt.  “I’m not going to let you make me late.”

                “The meeting doesn’t even start until eight, Steve.  _Eight._ We have an _hour._ I could have slept for another _whole hour_.” Bucky took a grumpy sip of coffee and grabbed another one of the bagels that Steve had picked up during his morning run.

                “I can’t believe I’m hearing all this whining after I woke you up so nicely this morning.”

                Bucky did brighten at the memory.  After his post-run shower Steve had slid back between the sheets and woken him up with a surprise blow job to make up for the early morning meeting at SHIELD.  “ _Fine_ ,” he said after he swallowed.  “I’ll quit bitching.”

                “Whoa, let’s not make promises you can’t keep there.”

                “Very funny.”  Bucky flicked him on the ear as he walked by.  “We taking the bikes?”

                “Yeah, seems like it’ll be a good day for it.”

                The ride out of the city to the Avenger Headquarters was unremarkable other than startling a bunch of deer out for an early morning feeding.  After badging in and finding the conference room, Bucky made a beeline for the coffee, elbowing Clint out of the way with a smirk.  At 0800 on the dot Maria came in, followed by a minion with an armful of folders, who proceeded to scurry around the table and give one to everyone.  The reactions around the table varied as everyone opened the folders in front of them, ranging from Bucky’s incredulous “a fucking _fashion show_?” to Natasha’s “oooh, a fashion show.”

                Steve flipped through the mission briefing, scanning through the intel summaries and threat assessments.  London’s September fashion week was being held at Somerset House this year, right in the middle of London, and SHIELD had multiple tips of a bomb threat targeting the show. Ordinarily it wouldn’t be an Avengers gig, but intel from Daredevil said that some of the names attached to the situation ranged from Wilson Fisk to Ezekiel Stane, so SHIELD decided to pull out the big guns.  “I understand that this seems to be a pretty significant threat, but…why a fashion show? Why male models?”

                “I’ll take this one, Maria.”  Clint sat forward, clearing his throat and looking very serious.  “Think about it, Steve. Assassins are genetically constructed to become male models.  Peak physical condition.  Gain entry to the most secure places in the world.  And most importantly, they do as they’re told.” 

                From across the table Bucky glared at him so hard that by rights Clint should have at least been knocked out of his chair.  “You think you’re funny, Barton?” He growled. “No one is going to bomb a fashion show, for Christ’s sake,” Bucky said, throwing the folder back down on the table,  “and I don’t see why I have to be the one to be on the catwalk.”  

                “Look, Barnes, we’ve got credible intelligence on this. Unless you give me a good reason why you can’t do this, you’re in,” Maria said, tapping her folder on the conference room impatiently.  "It's not as if the mission assignments are given out at random."

                “What about Sam? He’s cares about clothes and shit.”  Bucky gestured at him.  “Look at him right now, he’s already dressed like he’s in a fashion show.”

                “First of all, wearing a suit to a business meeting is pretty standard practice these days,” Sam said, looking pointedly at Bucky's long sleeved shirt and jeans. “Two, looks like I’m going to be running air support for a mission in Canada.”

                “Nice try,” Maria said dryly.  “You will be performing and Barton is going to be your backup on the inside.  Steve is working the security detail, and Natasha, Sharon, and I are going to be in the audience.  Everyone else will be on other assignments for this one.”

                “Including Thor? Why can’t Thor be in the show? He’s a beefcake, come on.  The ladies would eat him up.”

                Beside him Natasha muttered “it’s a fashion show, not a strip club, James,” while on the other side of the conference table Maria rolled her eyes.

                “Thor isn't on Earth right now.  Besides, can you really imagine that?”

                Bucky gave himself a headache trying but eventually had to admit defeat. “I want to see this so-called intel,” he muttered instead, slouching down in his seat.  For the rest of the meeting he scowled down at the briefing folder on the desk and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. 

                The rest of the day pretty much deteriorated from there, to the point where Bucky eventually retreated to his bedroom, a room that he used so little that guests had spent more time in it than he had.  With a sigh, he wedged himself as deeply in the closet as he could get, feeling a little bit better with one more door, thin as it was, between him and the world.  He leaned his head back against the wall, feeling aggravated that he was here once again, hiding with enough knives to stock a kitchen and too jumpy to be trusted with any of them around other people.   After the third time knocking, Steve finally got the picture and just left offerings at the door to the closet, one of which was his phone because Steve is brilliant that way.

                After a few hours playing on the internet and listening to music, he finally felt centered enough for company.  _You can come sit with me if you want,_ he texted.  Knowing Steve, he was probably just reading on the couch and watching something inane on television, which means that it would only take a minute or two before –

                “Hey,” Steve said softly as he slid the door open and wedged those enormous shoulders into the other corner.  Bucky slid the door shut with his foot.  “So how long is it going to take for us to come out of the closet this time?”

                Bucky rolled his eyes even though it was dark.  “Steve, that was only funny the first time.”

                “Nah, it’s always funny.”  Bucky felt Steve’s knee bump his own.  “How many knives tonight?”

                “Seven.  And a garrote.”

                Steve made a considering noise.   “That’s not so bad.”

                “Yeah.”  The first few weeks he’d been crouched in here with a rifle and every knife in the house, waiting for an ambush that never came.

                “Want to talk about it?”

                “Nope,” Bucky said.  The silence afterwards sounded disappointed, so he cleared his throat and added, “not yet.”

                “Alright.  Whatever you need, sweetheart.”  Bucky heard Steve move and suddenly there was a head in his lap.  He froze for about thirty seconds at the unexpected contact before he forced himself to relax, muscle by muscle.  After a few minutes, he even sheathed the knife he’d been fiddling with so he could put his hand on Steve’s head, earning a pleased sound and a happy sigh.  When Steve’s breathing became slow and rhythmic he started counting the breaths, losing himself in the numbers until he fell asleep.

               

                Steve woke him up by sitting up with a jaw-cracking yawn.  Light was coming in under the closet door, so Bucky could see Steve’s hair sticking up in all directions as he ran his hands through it.  Smiling, he leaned over to press a kiss to Steve’s neck.

                “I’m going to go for a run then hit the gym,” Steve murmured as he leaned into Bucky’s kiss.  “You coming?”  He asked, trying to keep his voice neutral, but when Bucky nodded he couldn’t help smiling. “Alright, I’ll meet you at the door.” 

                Twenty minutes later he locked the door behind them, and tipped his head towards the sidewalk heading north.  “If we go this way, it’s about a ten mile loop through Central Park and we can finish at the Tower.”

                “God, you are the worst,” Bucky groaned as they started off. “The Tower’s only like two miles away!”  But that was the last of the grumbling as they settled into the run.  They made an interesting pair; Steve ran like a marathon runner, light on his feet with evenly paced strides.  Bucky ran like a wolf, with loping, ground-eating strides that were deceptively fast.  Steve went around obstacles, while Bucky flowed over them.  They were over halfway there when Steve realized that somewhere it had turned into a race. With an inward grin, he opened up, lengthening his stride.  He heard Bucky curse in Russian beside him, and it was on.

                They were neck and neck the entire way there, but Steve won when at the last minute a bench Bucky was vaulting over turned out to be unstable and sent him into a diving roll.  He came up on his feet and sprinting, but the lost seconds were crucial.   Steve leaned against the door of the Tower, trying to laugh and catch his breath at the same time.   His heart flipped when he saw a shit-eating grin on Bucky’s face, and for a shining moment he was so perfectly happy that it hurt.  He wanted so much to pull Bucky in for a kiss, but the moment seemed fragile somehow, so he just stared as Bucky raked the sweaty hair from his face.

                “Next time,” Bucky said as he followed Steve inside the gym.

                “You can try, old man.”

 

                Later, after a cool-down jog back to their townhouse, Bucky was feeling optimistic as he stepped into the shower.  Today could be a good day; it already started off pretty swell, despite all the running.  He toweled off his hair to find Steve reviewing a file spread out on the table in the kitchen.  With half-formed plans of seducing Steve after second breakfast, Bucky bit into an apple as he looked at the file over Steve’s shoulder.

                “It’s a trap,” he said as he sat down at the table, throwing the towel over the back of the chair.

                “Hmm?” 

                Bucky gestured at the papers. “If that’s a mission briefing from SHIELD, it’s a trap.”

                “How do you know?” Steve paged back through the document as if the words “TRAP” were written somewhere and he’d missed them.  

                “Underground facility, rural location?”

                “Yeah…”

                “Just recently discovered?”

                “Yeah…”

                “It’s a trap.  If it’s supposed to be Hydra, then it’s a trap.”

                “Ok…” 

                With a feat of supersoldier strength Bucky managed to not roll his eyes.  “First, Hydra likes to build its facilities in cities,” he said, raising a finger. “Lots of cover, lots of human shields.” He raised another finger. “Second, it’s underground because it’s harder to escape.  No convenient windows to jump out of, Mr. Stairs Are For Chumps.   It also makes it harder for you to know the layout going in.  They lure you in, and then it becomes a kill zone.”

                “Our intel says –“

                “Ignore your intel.  Whatever your intel says is what Hydra told it.  There’s no high-value target, no tempting stores of information.  Your best bet would be to drop a missile on the location and call it a day.”

                “It’s in _Canada_ , we can’t drop a missile on it.”

                Bucky shrugged, mouth full of apple.  For a moment Steve looked at Bucky and then back at the satellite picture of the bunker.   Bucky could see the question forming in his head, and then watched him struggle over whether or not to ask it.  In a fit of assholery, he decided to wait to see what Steve would say.

                “Were you…did you…”  Steve ran a hand over his jaw, getting frustrated.  Bucky knew that he hated to ask questions like this, afraid that the wrong memory would trigger one of Bucky shit-show days.  But these weren’t the bad ones; at least those guys’d had a fighting chance. Sort of.

                “Yeah, I was and I did.  I’ve been in the center of one of those traps before.  Hydra would lure in the Russians, the Germans, whoever was poking too hard at their little nest of vipers and I would make sure no one came out.  Like that bull-headed man in the maze.”

                The non sequitur took Steve a moment to follow. “You mean the Minotaur?” He finally said, incredulously.  “Where in the hell did you get that from?”

                Bucky gave him a lofty look and threw the apple core at his head.  “I contain multitudes, Steve. Also, not all of us are afraid of the internet.”

                Even while rolling his eyes Steve caught the core and threw it into the trash.  “I’ll talk to Maria about it.  Meanwhile, have you had a chance to review the London mission?”

                Just like that, the good day sucked an eagle into the jet engine and caught fire.  “No, not yet.”

                Steve glanced up just in time to see the look on his face.  It must have been a doozy because he sat back in his chair and looked concerned.  “What’s the matter, Buck?”

                “Nothing.  I just don’t want to ruin the day by talking about that bullshit mission.”  Getting up, he slung a leg over Steve’s hips to sit in his lap. The kitchen chair creaked warningly but held.  With a slow smile, Bucky tilted Steve’s jaw up with his metal hand, brushing a kiss over the stern lines of Steve’s lips, urging them to soften.   As Bucky started to imagine the possibilities – on the couch? Over the table? Against the wall? – the plates in his arm started to shift with a soft whir and a series of little clicks. He leaned a little closer to grind himself against Steve’s stomach, tilting his head to deepen the kiss.  He knew the moment Steve gave in and let himself be distracted by sex, because one hand came up to bury itself in Bucky’s wet hair to hold him still while Steve made a sound deep in his chest and ravished his mouth while the other had a tight grip on his ass, urging them together in a slow rhythm.   When the chair creaked again, this time more loudly, Steve picked him up and laid him out on the kitchen table before climbing on top.  Bucky grinned as he pulled Steve back in, sliding his hands down his pants.  Good day rescued.

 

                Even though Bucky was back in Steve’s bed that night, the next day didn’t start off quite so well.  He woke up groggy and sore from a vivid dream of being caught in headlights, unable to move or see who was on the other side of the lights, only knowing that he was surrounded and outnumbered.  Some days your dreams were ridiculous nonsense, and some days your subconscious decides to parade all your insecurities right in front of you.

                “Fuck,” Bucky sighed, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.  It was a Sunday, one of the few days that Steve didn’t bounce out of bed before the sun to go running, so Bucky rolled out of bed ninja style to go stand under the shower for a while.

                By the time Bucky was done and had started a pot of coffee, Steve was wandering out of the bedroom looking adorably rumpled with sleep.  “Hey handsome,” he murmured, dropping lazy kisses along Bucky’s neck and shoulder as the coffee maker spluttered and sizzled.  “You’re up early.”

                “Bad dream.”

                “Mmm,” Steve hummed sympathetically, resting more and more of his weight against Bucky until Bucky had to adjust his stance or fall over under the weight of 240 pounds of sleepy super-soldier. 

                “Why are you so tired this morning?” Bucky rested his head against Steve’s and wondered if he could somehow pour a cup of coffee without disturbing him.  He started reaching carefully for a mug in the drying rack next to the sink.

                “Couldn’t sleep.  Saw something that made me mad on the internet.” 

                “That’ll do it.” His fingers caught on the handle and he grinned with satisfaction while Steve sighed, breath hot across the skin of Bucky’s back.  Bucky was starting to suspect that Steve was less sleepy than lazy, which was understandable because it was raining like crazy against the windows.  “Still wanna go to the range today?”

                “Yeah. Later.”

                As long as Steve had been coming to Stark Tower, he hadn’t known that it had a firing range in a sub-basement until Tony overheard him talking to Natasha about taking Bucky shooting and mentioned it.  To say it was rarely used was an understatement; to test his suits Tony had to go way out to the desert, and everyone else usually practiced at Avengers headquarters.  But true to form, when Steve and Bucky finally got out of the house and made it to the Tower, the range there was state of the art and spotlessly clean, with air scrubbers that were almost silent.  After a few minutes of poking around Steve finally had to ask JARVIS how to work the targets, since the whole thing was run from a touchpad.  While he figured that out, Bucky unloaded their duffel bag, arranging all of the firearms out on the table by caliber and checking them methodically for jams or dirt.

                Steve leaned against the lane divider, enjoying the simple pleasure of watching Bucky do something that he was good at.  At first, he could tell that Bucky was enjoying the feel of having a rifle in his hands again; he saw him go through the basic routines like they were second nature.  Check the clip. Rack the barrel. Inhale, exhale, fire.  Fire. Fire. Fire. But after the first clip, something changed.   Tension crept into the line of his shoulders.  His eyes were no longer looking at the target, but beyond it.  When the second clip ran out, instead of changing the magazine he dropped the gun and grabbed for the next, and that’s when Steve realized that Bucky wasn’t at a firing range anymore, but a firefight. 

                He slowly straightened and said nothing for the first few minutes, hoping Bucky would pull out of it on his own.  But Bucky was working his way down the table and the paper down the lane was gone, shredded by hundreds of rounds.  He let Bucky empty the gun in his hands before stepping in and warily putting a hand on Bucky’s arm.

                “Hey, Buck –“ As he expected Bucky turned on him, swinging at him with the rifle before lunging for a pistol from the table.  Steve’s stomach sank when he saw the look in Bucky’s eyes.  They were cold. Unwavering. “Goddammit Buck-“  Bucky’s mouth curled into a snarl as he brought the pistol up.  Steve stepped in and blocked the arm, twisting his wrist to force him to let go and kicked him in the chest.  Bucky stumbled backwards, reaching behind his back for – was that a _knife?_ Steve didn’t even know he was wearing that – and slashed at him. 

                A year ago Steve would have been calling for help as soon as he realized that Bucky had gone under again.  But these days, Steve knew enough of his moves – and when he went under, he went back to basic programming – that he dodged the first slash, waited for him to change his grip, then stepped inside his reach and elbowed him _hard_ right in the face.

                Bucky stumbled backwards, cursing.  “Ow, Steve, shit. What was-” he stopped when he reached up to touch his nose and saw the knife in his hand.  “Fuck, Steve, I’m sorry, did I-”

                “No, Buck, it’s alright, you just…you know.” Steve gestured at his head vaguely.

                “Goddammit.” With a tired sigh he put the knife back in its hidden sheath at the base of his spine and dabbed at his bloody nose.

                Steve leaned back against the lane divider and watched Bucky pick up the pistol and visibly flinch at all the empty shells that littered the floor in his lane.  “So, that hasn’t happened in a while.”

                “Nope.”  Bucky was still avoiding his eyes, searching for a broom to clean up all the brass.  But, since they were at Stark Tower, a souped up Roomba-looking robot appeared out of nowhere instead and started herding all the shells towards the corner of the room.  They both stared at it for a moment and Steve _knew_ they were having the same thought – where in the _hell_ did Stark find the time to make shit like this, and why – before Bucky grunted and turned away.

                “Is it this mission? This modeling thing?” Bucky sighed and was quiet for a long time, the only noise being the beeping of the robot as it policed the brass for them.  Steve struggled not to fill that silence, to bite his tongue and let Bucky find his words.

                “I don’t like that everyone is going to be looking at me,” he said finally. His hair was a dark curtain around his face as he leaned over the firearms table. As if he needed something to do with his hands while he talked, he grabbed some magazines and started filling them.  “I’m going to be…exposed.”

                Steve nodded thoughtfully.  He _didn’t_ say, “The old Bucky would have loved to be the center of attention,” or, “you’ll be fine, there’s nothing to worry about.”  Months of counseling had made him a little smarter in that regard.  “I can see how that would be pretty terrifying,” he said instead.

                Bucky just grunted in acknowledgement.

                “Do you want to call it off?  If you-”

                “Don’t be stupid, I’m not going to back out.  I can do it, I’m just…adjusting to the idea.”

                “Ok.” Steve let it go.  “That’s good, because Clint would be devastated.”

                That surprised a laugh out of Bucky.  “That’s true. The asshole.”

                Steve turned back to their lanes and started bringing the targets forward.  Steve’s had a nice tight cluster in the center but as he’d suspected, Bucky’s target was all but gone, shredded by what had to have been at least a hundred rounds. “You know, if you were trying to impress me with your accuracy, it leaves something to be desired,” Steve said as he held up the tattered fragment of paper.  

                Bucky rolled his eyes and took it down, putting a fresh one up.  He sent it to the far end of the range and picked up the AK-12 Natasha had picked up during her last trip to the Motherland.  In less than a minute he emptied one and a half clips in the target and brought it back to the front.

                Steve started laughing when it was halfway up.  In carefully spaced bullet holes Bucky had spelled out “FUCK YOU” across the center.

***

                “I swear to God, Tony, if this man touches my dick one more time I’m gonna kill him,” Bucky growled, trying not to twitch as the tailor kneeling at his feet made more notes in his little notebook. Tony sighed and took his feet off the coffee table from where he’d been lounging on the couch as his tailor fussed around Bucky. 

                “No, you’re not,” Tony said, putting down his tablet and eyeing Bucky over the top of his sunglasses.  “You’re going to stop complaining because this is for a mission and you are a professional, right Barnes?”

                Bucky narrowed his eyes at Tony and Tony stared back, unimpressed.

                “You can put your arms down now,” the tailor said, apparently unconcerned by Bucky’s death threats. He stretched his tape measure across Bucky’s shoulders and made a noise that could have meant anything from concern to mild sexual interest.  Bucky’s scowl deepened.

                “Besides, now that we have your measurements maybe you can order yourself something nice to wear.  Even Steve owns a suit.” As the tailor started measuring around Bucky’s biceps Tony stood to look over his shoulder curiously.  “I knew it, the metal arm is slightly bigger than the other one.  Better get to work on that. Speaking of, when you work out, do you do reps with the metal arm, or just the regular one?”  He mimed doing bicep curls and Bucky rolled his eyes.

                “What about me makes you think that I care about owning a suit?” Bucky looked down at what he’d thrown on today; jeans, boots, and one of Steve’s henleys because it was laundry day.  Good versatile outfit for leisure or ass-kicking.

                “I’ve seen pictures of you from Brooklyn.  You were a sharp dresser back in the day.” Tony tipped an imaginary hat and smiled crookedly.  “The way you wore that sergeant’s uniform was a work of art.”  Bucky looked away and his jaw tightened.  The tailor finally started packing up his things and Bucky rolled his shoulders gratefully, trying to ease the tension in his neck.   “I’m sorry, was that rude?” Tony pushed his sunglasses up his nose.  “Look, I know something about this mission has you worked up.  But all you gotta do is channel the James Buchannan Barnes that had style.” With apparently no care for his personal safety, Tony tapped Bucky on the chest.  “Not murder style, but _style_ style.”

                “That man died in the war,” Bucky snapped, pushing past Tony to grab his coat and glove from the back of the couch and heading for the elevator.

                “We’ve all died in a war, Barnes.  Every single Avenger is someone who was too stubborn to die when they were supposed to,” Tony said to Bucky’s retreating back. “At some point, you’re going to have to move past it.”

***

                “Bucky? _Bucky!”_ With a gasp Bucky woke up and rolled off the bed, scrambling until his back was against a wall. He struggled for air, feeling like there was a band around his chest, and stared at the chaos in the bedroom.  Pillows were strewn all over the floor, the sheets were half torn off the bed, and everything on his night table was on the floor.

                “What?” He managed.  Steve was rubbing a hand over his throat but dropped it when he saw Bucky looking. “Did I- shit.” He ran a hand over his face and fled to the kitchen, trying to splash water on his face and finally just dunking his whole head under the tap. A towel appeared in the corner of his eye and he took it, drying off his face and raking his wet hair behind his ears.  He went to the living room and collapsed on the couch, still avoiding looking at Steve.

                “You’ve been having a lot of these episodes lately, Buck. Wanna talk about it?”

                Bucky groaned and threw his arm over his face.  “Nope.”

                “Well, it was a rhetorical question anyway.  Talk to me or talk to a therapist, your choice.” Bucky felt the couch sag as Steve sat down.

                He slouched down into the cushions so he could rest his head on the back and stared up at the ceiling. “So there were times when Hydra wanted to…show off the...the asset-“ his mouth twisted; he felt like he should be saying _me_ but connecting himself to _that,_ to the asset, felt…wrong, and horrible, and nauseating. The only thing he and _it_ shared was this body, and that was the problem, wasn’t it, this body that was _theirs_ for a lot longer than it was _his_ , and it knew how to do things that he didn’t remember learning, and sometimes it still did things that he didn’t remember doing, and- Bucky shook his head once, sharply, and realized that he’d been quiet for too long and Steve was starting to look worried.  “It was always really stressful, so I guess the thought of this mission is just bringing up bad” _thoughts_ “memories,” he finished.

                Steve made a thoughtful noise and Bucky felt him move closer. “Can I touch you?” he asked quietly.  Bucky knew that he meant a hug, or a kiss maybe, but Bucky didn’t feel up to that, so he held out his hand and closed his eyes tightly when Steve laced their fingers together.  “I’m sorry you’re going through this right now, Buck. How can I help?”

                Bucky sighed and tugged until their joined hands were over his chest, pleasantly grounding.  “This is helping. You’re helping. I-“ _I’m sorry I hurt you in my sleep.  I’m sorry you have to keep dealing with this, with me, that I’m not –_ he shook his head sharply and shoved those thoughts away. _Don’t say sorry, say thank you,_ one of the therapists had said.  “Thank you for…you know…” He gestured with their joined hands. “Being here.”

                “Being here as in existing, or like, being _here?_ ” Bucky’s lips quirked at the thread of humor in Steve’s voice and he opened one eye to give him a look, but Steve’s face was perfectly serious.

                “Both, asshole.”

                “I love you, too, Buck.”

***

                “First time in the United Kingdom?” The immigration agent said with boredom as he scanned Barnes’ fake passport, a fancy new Russian one under the name Sergei Verenich complete with forged visas and entry stamps.   

                Bucky couldn’t help it, he had to laugh.  The first time he’d been in England he’d come by boat in a cargo hold full of other chumps drafted for World War II.  The _last_ time he’d been in London he’d been smuggled in on a private plane and assassinated a Russian dissident before being smuggled back out to the United States, frozen like a popsicle and loaded with the luggage.  “No, I’ve been here a few times,” he said, letting a Russian accent color his vowels.

                The agent eyed him suspiciously as if wondering why he’d laughed, but eventually waved him through with a few other cursory questions that Bucky also answered with a bored tone, as if they were going to have a competition of who could be less interested in this conversation.  Since being in enclosed spaces with a lot of people was a terrible idea for Bucky in general, much less when he was already on edge, he busted out his SHIELD expense account and took a cab from the airport to the hotel.  Everyone was arriving on different flights from different locations to avoid tripping any alerts that their mystery villains might have in place; despite missing Steve, it had been nice to be able to put in his earbuds for the whole flight and ignore the world for a while.

                He had the taxi driver drop him off a few blocks down from the hotel and circled the building a couple of times to familiarize himself with the area before going inside, sliding his fake passport across the counter to check into his room.  The next two hours were spent scoping out all of the exits and possible ingress points, putting up his own security cameras in the stairwells and hallways and setting up a secure private wifi system to run them on.  The bedding was pulled off and piled in the corner of the room farthest from the windows with the mattress was propped up in front of them.   Eventually he was satisfied and when Steve finally arrived he was curled up in the piled bedding scrolling through videos on Youtube.  Steve just glanced at the room, eyebrow raised at Bucky’s paranoia, and just put his stuff down, taking the shield out of its travel case and propping it next to the impromptu bed.

                When Steve moved to sit down beside him Bucky grabbed all the blankets and wrapped them around him.  “I don’t know where _you’re_ going to sleep,” he said archly, looking significantly at a patch of floor on the other side of the room.

                Steve only grunted and grabbed the edge of the blanket and with a huge yank dumped Bucky out on the floor, smiling a little at Bucky’s affronted “hey!”  He curled it around him like a burrito and also stole one of the pillows.  “I think someone in HR is in Hydra,” he said, yawning widely.  “I had three connections to get here, and one of them was in _Istanbul_ of all places.”

                Bucky looked at the clock and did the math.  He gave Steve an upside down kiss in sympathy.  “Yeah, you’ve been traveling for like 18 hours.  Get some sleep and we’ll go check out the location tonight.”

               

                Since the bars in this neighborhood all closed at ten, when Bucky and Steve were outside the Somerset House they were some of the only people on the street.  Bucky stared up at the historical building, barely lit by the streetlights.  It was shaped like a U, with a large courtyard where a temporary structure had been built to house the fashion show.  Apparently the final touches were being put on it because there was a construction van out front and they could see some people moving around inside wearing headlamps.

                “Pretty building,” Bucky offered while they waited for the people to leave.  He knew Steve’s artist eyes would be drawn to the carved colonnades and statues decorating the outside of the Somerset House.  The fashion show building occupying the center of the courtyard was nothing like that – it was a long, boxy structure made from iron pipe scaffolding and covered with a black weatherproof canvas.  Bucky glared at it and wondered if he could get away with blowing it up now.

                “Yeah.” Steve put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, eyes picking out the details of the building despite the darkness.  “I’m hoping we’ll get to see more of London this time around.  When I was in town for Peggy’s funeral I didn’t get to stay long.”

                “I’m sure we will.” 

                “Hey, boys. Fancy meeting you here,” Natasha said from behind them.  Turning, all they could see of her outfit was that she was wearing a dark, well-cut trench coat and boots with moderately high heels, and despite himself Bucky had to wonder how she didn’t turn her ankle on the cobblestone sidewalks in this neighborhood. Next to her Sharon was wearing a thick cable knit sweater with jeans; together they looked like a couple of ladies heading home from a pub trivia night or something.   Hell, they probably did head over here after pub trivia, he’d seen a sign for it as they’d gotten off the underground.

                “Hey, Nat, Sharon.  There are maintenance people inside,” he explained when Natasha gave them a curious look.  “We’re not in a rush.”

                “So is this a group project or are we supposed to be doing this homework assignment on our own?” Sharon said, checking the time.  “Shouldn’t Clint be here if we’re going to do recon together?”

                “I bet Barton’s already inside,” Natasha said with amusement.  “I’m going to say he got here earlier and got stuck when the maintenance people came, and he’s waiting for them to leave so he can get out.”

                For the next half hour they wandered slowly around the block instead of loitering, and sure enough after the maintenance team packed up and left Clint dropped down from the security fence next to them. “Thank God,” he said fervently. “They’ve been in there for _hours_ and I’m starving.”

 

                At 8 am the next morning they all met back up in a hotel conference room that Maria had rented out in the name of a commercial insurance advocacy group.  Unsurprisingly, despite the hours they spent scoping out the Somerset house in the middle of the night, Steve woke up at 6 am to go for a run and chivvied Bucky out of bed to get there at 7:30, meaning they had already gone through two cups of coffee each before anyone started to drag themselves in.  Sharon was the first to show, carrying Starbucks and reading something intently on her phone.  Clint and Natasha were next, and it was clear that Nat was the only reason why Clint was even there.

                “Do you know how hard it is to find a bar in London that stays open past 11?” Clint said grouchily, glaring at them over his sunglasses.  “Much less a place to get pizza at 3 am?”

                “Um, like five minutes on Google?” Sharon said without looking up from her phone.

                “Try _thirty_ minutes on Google and a fifteen minute subway ride. Ridiculous!”

                “They call it the underground here, Clint, do try to blend in,” Nat said as she steered him towards the instant coffee maker in the corner.  Bucky heard him exclaim “what? Where’s the coffee pot?” as Natasha punched the buttons on the coffee vending machine.

                Maria came in right at 8, looking not at all jet-lagged like the rest of them.  “Alright, let’s get started.  I’m assuming that all of you were wise enough to scope out the location yesterday after you arrived?”

                “Oh, yeah.  Really swanky,” was Clint’s comment.  “Lots of fun scaffolding.”

                “Too many ingress and egress points,” Natasha said with a frown.  “We’d need twice as many people to watch them all.”

                “Crowd control is going to be a problem.  If we have to do a rapid evacuation it’s going to be a madhouse.”  _There’s going to be a fucking stampede_ , was Steve’s actual comment last night as he was scowling at the setup of the runway and folding chairs.

                Maria nodded, taking notes.  “Sharon?”

                “I’ve been talking to the Met officers that are responsible for the venue security.  I’ve expressed our concerns with them and they’ve agreed to have more bomb-sniffing dogs patrol the area.  The liaison I’ve been assigned is very…competent,” Sharon said with a smug grin.

                “Cute?” Bucky heard Natasha whisper to her.

                “Oh, yeah,” she whispered back. “I think Scotland Yard is trying to make a good impression with SHIELD so they’ve certainly sent along their _finest._ ”  From the small grin playing around the corners of Steve’s mouth he heard them too, but he just took a piece of paper from his pocket and slid it along the table to Maria.

                “Here are my notes and recommendations from our recon last night.  We’re not going to be able to change some protocols this late in the game, but others are going to be a quick fix.”

                Maria scanned the list quickly. “I agree.  Let’s get moving, I want everyone in their places before the crowd arrives.”                

***

                “Jesus Christ, Steve, these people are babies,” Bucky muttered into his communicator. He poked one kid in the back, who jumped and paled when he saw Bucky’s scowl. “Hey, how old are you, kid?”

                “T-twenty,” he said, glancing around like he thought he was in trouble for something.

                “Twenty,” Bucky grunted, as if that were proof.  He listened to Steve’s soft laugh as he kept walking until he found a place to sit down.  Bucky used the full length mirror in front of him to study the room.  On the far side of the open space someone was rolling out racks and racks of clothes, and just a few chairs down the kid was still stealing glances at him.  Security guards were pacing back and forth; Bucky squinted but didn’t see Steve among them.  He was so lost in his thoughts that he jumped when Clint appeared in the mirror beside him.  “Barton? What in the hell are you doing here?”

                “I grew up in the circus, dude.  Makeup, hair, and a little long-range backup are just a few of the services I provide.”  If the man’s grin got any wider the top of his head would fall off, Bucky thought sourly.  He’d been so keyed up by this mission that he’d completely blanked on the fact that Clint would be his backup inside. 

                He watched Clint study him in the mirror.  “You volunteered for this, didn’t you.”

                “Oh, absolutely.  Did you think I was going to miss having a front row seat?” He clapped Bucky on the shoulder.  “Now let’s see it. Blue Steel!”

                “Oh I’ll show you some steel alright.”

                “Ha! I get it, because you like to stab people. But seriously, let’s see your runway face.”

                “What the hell are you talking about, Clint?”

                Clint looked at him thoughtfully.  “You know, this is normally the opposite of what I would advise you, but just go out there and imagine killing everyone in the audience and you should be fine.”

                That did manage to get a smile out of Bucky. “And here I thought this was going to be difficult.”

                “Nah, here comes the hard part.  Getting ready.  I’ll work fast because it’s probably going to be a madhouse in here in about thirty minutes.”  He set a duffel bag down next to the small table that represented the ‘changing room’ and started to dig through it.  When he opened it Bucky saw his bow, folded down to fit, a crapton of arrows, a few spare underwear and assorted toiletries.  He wondered if that was the only bag Barton had brought on this trip.   Bucky’s shoulders tensed when Clint came up with a comb and pair of scissors.  “Can I cut your hair now?  I promise to be quick,” he said when he saw the look on Bucky’s face.  “Just a trim because it’s looking a bit shaggy.”

                With a sigh Bucky nodded his head and spent the next ten minutes watching Clint like a hawk.  Not because he didn’t trust Barton to do his hair – at least, not while on a mission – but it helped him not reach for the knife strapped to his ankle.

                Steve showed up just when Clint was finishing, raking some sort of goopy product through his hair. “Whatcha think?” Clint said, presenting Bucky with a completely unnecessary flourish.

                “Looks nice, B – Sergei.  Your hair is so…shiny.  And bouncy, like Nat’s.”

                “Great, just what I’ve always wanted.”

                “You should be so lucky, James.”  Everyone jumped when Natasha came in on their communicators.  “You’ve got your communicators tuned to the team channel, geniuses.”

                “We’re all going to remember our COMSEC briefing on this mission, right? And turn off your communicators when you don’t need them so we don’t occupy the work channel with chatter?” Maria said pointedly.

                With a wince, Clint reached up and fiddled with his, trying to turn off the communicator function without turning off the whole hearing aid.  “Alright Steve, you gonna stay for makeup?”

                “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said with a wide grin, leaning against the table next to them.  “Brings back memories.”

                Clint grabbed a few more things from his bag and set them out on the table.  “Stay still Sergei, and try not to stab me if I accidentally get you in the eye with the mascara.”  To his credit, Barton worked fast, perhaps because he was able to hear Bucky gritting his teeth as he applied eyeliner and swiped shadow over his eyes.  “Fortunately, this show is about the fall lines so there will be a lot of dark colors, which will suit you.”  There was a moment of silence where everyone was probably thinking the same thought about Bucky having to model in bright spring colors before Clint continued, talking as he continued to apply makeup.  “Maria and I made sure that the outfits they selected for you will help cover up the arm.  I know you have the nanomask for it, but you know,” he said quietly, straightening and tilting his head to study his work.  “If it can go wrong, it will, right?  How does your boy look now, Steve?”

                When Clint stepped aside so Steve could see his face, Bucky could see a red flush crawling up Steve’s neck, past the high collar of his security guard uniform.  Steve cleared his throat and shuffled his feet a little. “You look real good, Sergei.  Clint did a great job.”

                “What do you think?” Clint stepped out of the way so Bucky could look at his reflection. 

                “I trust you,” Bucky said with a shrug, eyes avoiding the mirror.  “So what happens now?”

                “Now you get out of the way because like ten other guys are going to need to get their hair and makeup done too.  I’m going to go scope out a good position to watch the show and I’ll be back.”  Clint crammed everything back into his duffle bag and threw it over his shoulder and started to walk away.  He only got a few steps before he turned on his heel and pointed at Steve. “You can look, but don’t touch.  I know that face and if you mess up my good work Ima be pissed.”

                Bucky saw a guilty look cross Steve’s face as he watched Clint leave.  “For the record, he didn’t put anything on my lips,” Bucky pointed out with a slow smile.

                “That’s cuz your mouth doesn’t need anything to look sexy,” Steve growled, stooping to pull Bucky into a kiss by hooking his fingers into the collar of Bucky’s shirt.

                “So you’re a fan of the eyeliner,” Bucky murmured against Steve’s lips.

                “To be honest, the grease paint does it for me, too.  You should see for yourself,”  Steve said, tilting his head towards the mirror.

                “Nah, I’m good,” Bucky said, keeping his eyes on Steve, sliding his metal hand up the inside Steve's thigh.  He grinned wickedly when Steve made a noise and grabbed it, giving him a warning look. 

                “If you say so,” Steve said, kissing him again and squeezing his hand before releasing it.  “Just saying, if it’s a look you like, I wouldn’t mind seeing it more often.”

                Bucky tensed and he saw Steve’s eyes flick up to look over Bucky’s shoulder when someone approached behind them.  Turning, he saw a tall guy with dyed blonde hair and a perpetually pinched look on his face eyeballing them, as if he were secretly judging Bucky for making time with a security guard.

                But all the man said was “I need the mirror” and he started setting out his toiletries, so far deep into Bucky’s personal space that he felt his hackles start to rise.  It wasn’t until he felt Steve’s hand on his shoulder that he realized he had been unconsciously reaching for the knife in his boot. 

                “Fine,” Bucky growled, and stood.  The blond took a step back when he realized how large Bucky was, which went a long way towards making Bucky feel better.

                “If you need something to do, you could get changed,” Clint said in his ear.  “Look for a rack with your name on it.”

                Steve pulled Bucky in close for a final kiss. “I gotta go do my part.  Knock them dead out there. Figuratively.”

                “Thank you for specifying,” Bucky said dryly.   The security guard uniform was too baggy to really show off Steve’s shoulders and ass, but Bucky watched him walk away anyway before finding the rack Clint was talking about.  It wasn’t hard; it had SERGEI written on it in big letters with a bunch of pictures underneath. But when he reached for the first hanger, a tall Chinese woman appeared out of nowhere and slapped his hand.

                “It’s not time yet,” she said, scowling, and vanished.  Bucky sighed and rubbed his temples.  It was going to be a long fucking day.

[ ](http://ellebeesknees.tumblr.com/post/161504446407/lenadraws-another-of-my-contributions-for-the)

                Bucky was glad that Steve and Clint were there before the show started to keep him from freaking out, but in the end it didn’t do much to make the day easier.  He spent the first show in an adrenaline fueled state of hypervigilance; the first time a lady started tugging on his clothes he started to go for his knife before he heard Clint shouting in his ear to get naked. But in the end, it was still raw determination that made Bucky face the noise of the crowd, the judgmental muttering, the disorienting flashes of what seemed like hundreds of cameras.

                The second show was a bit better, mostly because Bucky only had to go out once.  However, between the travel, the midnight scouting, and the stress, by the time the show was over he was exhausted.  He managed to make it back to the hotel, check his safeguards, and toe off his boots before he collapsed onto the makeshift bed.

                The next thing he knew was the sensation of someone saying his name while stroking a hand gently down his back.  He jerked awake, and the realization that Steve had managed to enter the room without waking him up made his skin crawl.

                “Shit, babe, what time is it?” Bucky scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to wake up.

                “Not late. A little after seven.”

                “Ugh.” He collapsed back into the bed.  “That was exactly as bad as I thought it would be.”

                Steve sat down on the bed and looked apologetic.  “I’m sorry babe.  Part of it might be that you didn’t eat all day.  I picked up some Indian food on the way home, apparently that’s what London is known for these days.”

                Bucky rolled his shoulders, still feeling too on edge despite his nap to eat.  “Shower first?”

                “Sure, I’ll join you.” Bucky nodded and started the shower, stripping quickly and efficiently.  He was just about to dip his head under the water when Steve stopped him.

                “I’m gonna help you relax, but I want you to keep the eyeliner on for a minute.”

                Bucky raised an eyebrow and stepped back to give Steve room to step into the shower.  Bathrooms in Europe, even in fancy hotels, had very little room for one person, much less two, so with Steve there they were pretty much just standing chest to chest.  “What did you have in mind?”

                Steve grinned, eyes going heavy lidded and dark as he tilted his head to kiss him, long and languorous, hands coming up to knead the tense muscles in Bucky’s neck.  “Oh you know, the usual,” he said as he dropped to his knees, water running down his back as he pressed a kiss to the crease between Bucky’s thigh and hip.  “If you’re not bored of it by now.”

                Bucky could feel the tension from the day start to drain away as he watched Steve lick his lips while his hands stroked up and down Bucky’s thighs. Bucky leaned against the shower wall, widening his stance a little.  “Can a person get bored of blow jobs?” Bucky said, framing Steve’s face in his hands and running his metal thumb over Steve’s lower lip, chasing the movement of that tongue.  “Especially from a mouth like yours?”

                Steve licked a long, hot line up the length of his cock before sliding the tip in his mouth and swallowing him down slowly, inch by inch.  Bucky let his head fall back against the marble of the shower with a groan, knees a little weak at the hot pressure of Steve’s mouth and tongue.  As he slid back off Steve’s hands came up to cup his balls, thumb pressing lightly against the sensitive spot behind them.  Bucky groaned again and spread his legs to give Steve as much room to do whatever the hell he wanted, just as long as he didn’t stop.  Steve came back up, tongue sliding along the sensitive underside of his cock before he went back down, still so slow, until Bucky felt his cock hit the back of Steve’s throat.

                “Jesus Christ, Steve,” Bucky rasped, sliding his hands into Steve’s short hair, tugging lightly. Steve looked up at him, blue eyes shining from under his wet eyelashes, and swallowed. “Shit, you’re killing me here.”  At that Steve moaned, the vibration of that running through Bucky’s cock and straight into the arousal coiling tightly at the base of his spine.  With his hands he encouraged Bucky to move his hips and when he understood what Steve wanted Bucky almost lost it right there.  “Is this what you want?” He asked as he held Steve’s head still and slid his cock in and out of that hot mouth.  Steve moaned again, one hand moving down to stroke himself.

                Bucky watched Steve’s lips wrap around his cock as it moved in and out of his mouth, cheeks hollowing, until he was gritting his teeth with the effort it took not to come.  He pulled his cock out of Steve’s mouth and tugged him back up to his feet, backing him into the corner of the shower.  “I wanna put my hands on you, let me-“ and he took them both in his hand and started stroking.

                “Christ, Bucky,” Steve gritted out, pulling him close for an open-mouthed kiss as he thrust into Bucky’s fist, cocks sliding against each other wetly.  “I’m gonna-“

                “Yeah, do it for me,” Bucky growled against Steve’s throat, hand working faster as he grew closer himself. “Come for me, baby, come with me-“ and then Steve was curling into Bucky’s body as he spilled wetly over his hand, hands tight on Bucky’s arms. That was all that Bucky needed and he set his teeth into the muscle of Steve’s shoulder, groaning and breathing harshly through his own release.

                As he came down he realized Steve was carding his fingers though his hair and it felt so good that he went limp for a moment before he pulled back far enough to give Steve a long, lazy kiss.

                “You’re too good to me, babe,” he murmured as he pulled back.

                “Belay that talk, Sergeant, and wash my back,” Steve said, poking him in the side.  “Dinner’s waiting.”

***

                The next morning was almost more difficult than the first one, because now Bucky knew what to expect, so the tension starting tightening the muscles of his neck and shoulders as soon as he woke up, jostled out of an uneasy sleep by Steve trying to get ready for his run.  Instead of pacing uselessly around the hotel Bucky had decided to prowl around the grounds of the fashion show, hoping that he’d catch someone doing something shady so they could call the mission a success and go home already.  Unfortunately, all he encountered was a steady stream of Londoners making their morning commute, barely glancing at the signs for the fashion show, much less showing unusual interest.  Finally Bucky just tracked down the nearest Starbucks to have coffee waiting for Steve and Clint when they arrived.

                “Head's up, losers.”  Bucky couldn’t move because Clint was doing his makeup again, but he smiled as he saw Sam strutting through the milling crowd of models. Striking a pose, Sam ran a hand down his outfit, a luxurious fur vest over a well-tailored suit and a matching fedora.  “In the words of the immortal Will Smith,” Sam said, putting on a pair of rose colored sunglasses with a flourish, “I make this look good.”

                “Hey, Sam! I thought you were in Canada?” Clint smiled at him over Bucky’s head and reached for the mascara. “Also, how dare you let someone else do your makeup. I’m hurt.”

                “First, it’s Andre, thank you.  Second, I wanted to make an entrance.  As for why I’m not in Canada,” Sam looked significantly at Bucky over the top of his glasses, “apparently _my_ mission was a trap, so they brought me in on this one.”

                “Oh, shit, that Canada thing was you?” Bucky made a face.  “Why?”

                “I was going to be air support for a ground team.  Instead, I had Redwing go in on stealth mode and it was just like you predicted, all goons, no captives.  So we got clearance for a drone strike and they sent me here.  Got in late last night.”

                “So you must be tired as shit,” Clint said sympathetically. “We’re done, Sergei.” Glancing over, Bucky saw another model waiting politely a few feet away for their turn to get ready, so he stood.

                “More like as fuck,” Sam agreed, stepping back to let another model sit down at Clint’s station. “But hey, I don’t have to try hard to look good so whatever.” He followed Bucky to Sergei’s rack of clothes, trying to keep out of everyone’s way since he was already in his first outfit.  “So how are you doing, Barnes?”

                Bucky paused as he was pulling off his shirt, trying not to jostle the nanomask on his arm too much in the process. “Wait a damn minute.” Bucky studied Sam, who tried to look innocent. “This is about yesterday, isn’t it? Are you here to keep me from going off the rails?”

                Sam leaned against the wall, starting to put his hands in his pockets before realizing his outfit didn’t have any, so he just crossed his arms.  “I’m not gonna lie, there were some concerns about how well you were handling it.  But the other issue is that no one realized just how many moving parts there are to one of these shows.  Having another person on this end just makes sense.”

                “Fucking A.” Bucky was silent as he unlaced his boots and stripped out of his pants, waving off an assistant as she came around to help him get into his show clothes.

                “You know it’s not-“ Sam started but Bucky cut him off.

                “It feels pretty personal,” he growled. “I don’t like failing missions.”

                “You know the fashion show isn’t the mission, right?” Sam said, raising an eyebrow.

                “I know what the fucking mission is, Sam. But the point is, if I’m freaking out about the cameras I’m not keeping an eye out for the shady fucks out there that want to blow this place up, which is _failing the mission._ ”  Bucky had to stop, close his eyes, and take a deep breath before he accidentally ripped a stitch in the clothes.  When he opened his eyes he focused on putting on his show shoes to avoid the sympathy on Sam’s face.

                Sam sighed but he couldn’t argue, since that was exactly what Maria had said to Steve when they’d talked about bringing Sam in.  “Give yourself some time to adjust.  This isn’t something that you’ve ever done before.”

                “That’s not the problem, Sa-  _Andre,_ ” Bucky corrected himself. The tall Chinese lady – Bucky hadn’t been able to figure out if she was the designer or an assistant, and he was a little afraid of asking – came by with a clipboard and gave him a brisk head-to-toe once-over, gesturing for him to turn around, before giving him the nod and disappearing.  Bucky leaned against the wall next to Sam as they waited for their turn to walk.  “The problem is that this _is_ like something I’ve done before.”

                “Ah.” Sam stared at his feet for a moment before looking back up at Bucky. “I’m going to guess that wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

                Bucky grimaced, remembering bright lights, cattle prods, lots of shouting and violence. “No.”

                So that day went about as expected.  But Bucky had to admit, it did help to come off the catwalk and see Sam, who was taking to fashion modeling like a duck to water.  He had decided for some reason that 'Andre' was from the deep South and hearing him call all of the other models "honey" and "sugah" while trying to keep a straight face was certainly an effective distraction. Also, Steve had done some sort of scheduling drug deal so that he was done when Bucky was, so after Bucky's last show they were able to walk back to the hotel together.

                “How are you feeling today?" Steve asked, tucking his hand into the back pocket of Bucky's jeans.  

                “Not as bad as yesterday.”  Though that wasn't a high bar, Bucky reflected.  He wasn't crashing after a whole day of low-grade panic, that's about it. 

                Steve smirked and squeezed Bucky’s ass.  “Feeling pretty good to me.”

                “That’s terrible, Steve, and you’re a terrible person for saying it,” Bucky said, but he couldn’t help smiling as he followed Steve up the stairs.

                “What do you want to do tonight? Want to stay in again?” 

                “No. I know today sucked, but I’m sick of the room.” After Steve unlocked the door, Bucky patrolled the room and checked all of his security measures until he was satisfied that no one had been in their room.  “Besides, I’ve already planned a thing, so we’re going out.” 

                “Yeah?” Steve looked pleased, a wide grin erasing the shadow of worry in his eyes. “Let me take a shower then.”

 

                “So what’s the special occasion?” As a bunch of people flooded into the subway car, Steve stood up to let someone have his seat, trying to keep out of the way of the crowds.

                “We’re celebrating that Clint didn’t blow anything up and I didn’t stab anybody," Bucky improvised as he studied the subway map, trying to remember what stop they were supposed to get off at before giving up and checking his phone.

                “Oh, well that’s certainly a red letter day,” Steve said dryly, swaying a little with the movement of the train.  When they got off he looked around with interest, as if expecting to recognize where they were going.  Bucky had to snort at that as he led Steve to a pub a few blocks from the restaurant; this whole block had taken more than one hit during the Blitzkrieg and if it wasn’t for some dedicated historians there was no way Bucky would have found this place.

                Bucky pulled Steve to a stop in front of a pub that seemed exactly like any of the other ones; brick façade with green accents, gold lettering on the large plate glass windows spelling out _The Hook and Bell_.  “I know it’s not a perfect recreation, but this is it. The Pub.”

                “The pub?" Steve looked at him incredulously.  "You mean, _o_ _ur_ pub? From the war? You found it?”

                “Yeah,” Bucky said, pleased at Steve’s reaction.  “I mean, not the same one, obviously, the old one got bombed to shit, but it was right here.”  The last of his sentence was muffled because Steve pulled him into a kiss right there in the middle of the sidewalk, one hand tight on the back of his neck and one hand cupping his jaw.  Bucky returned with interest, tongue stroking deep into Steve’s mouth as a filthy promise for later before he pulled back.  “Come on, I think we’re late.”

               "And who's fault is that?" Steve said as Bucky opened the door for him.  "I was just trying to take a shower."

                "And I was trying to _save_ time by seducing you in the shower, but nooo, someone wanted pillows and blankets like a fancy broad." Taking Steve’s hand, Bucky wove through the glossy, beer-sticky tables to one in the back where everyone was sitting, already halfway through the first round. 

                Sam was the first one to raise his glass. “To Rogers and Barnes,” he said with a wide smile. "The first Avengers the last remaining Howlies."  Bucky rolled his eyes, fighting a smile.  _That_ history nerd had been the most excited when Bucky had mentioned this outing.

                “To Rogers and Barnes,” the rest chorused, and Steve grinned as he sat down. 

                “We went ahead and ordered you guys a round, since they serve the beer warm here anyway,” Clint said, sliding two pint glasses over to them.  “Also one of every appetizer they have.”

                “Thank you all for coming out." Steve raised his own glass.  "To the team,” he said and took a long swallow of his beer when everyone raised their glasses as well.

                Bucky took a sip and curled his lip. “It's just as bad as I remembered,” he whispered.

                “Yeah, that’s why we mostly stuck to whiskey during the war,”  Steve said under his breath.  He took another long swallow and suppressed a grimace.

                "Glad you guys finally got here," Sharon said, stooping to grab her phone out of her purse.  “Early reviews of the show are in and Sergei and Andre got honorable mentions.  Hold on, let me find it..." She scrolled through the webpage.  "Clothes, clothes, complaining...here.  'Sergei has an edgy ennui that perfectly showcased the daring design of the clothing line…blah blah other people…Andre had an energetic charisma that would likely have clothes flying off the shelves.'” She put the phone down and poked Sam in the ribs.  "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a natural."

                Steve smiled at Sam while everyone else teased him good-naturedly.  “Well, damn Sam, I guess you were meant to be a model.  You should retire from this humdrum day job of yours.”

                 “I’ve been telling people that for years.  But you know, if you want sexy, you should have seen me in a uniform,” he said with a wink.

                 "Oh, I have," Steve said, ears turning red as he took another sip of his beer. 

                 “Hey, stop flirting with my man, _Andre_ ,” Bucky said with an exaggerated scowl, putting a possessive arm around Steve's shoulders.  "He's real innocent and impressionable."

                Sam put his elbows on the table and batted his eyelashes at Bucky. “Hey, did you ever think that maybe there’s more to life than being really, really, really ridiculously good looking?”

                Clint snorted and then started coughing and sneezing as beer went up his nose. Steve shook his head again, trying to hide a smile, and stood. “I'll be right back. This round’s on me.”

                Bucky ignored everyone’s knowing looks and wolf whistles as he followed Steve to the bar.  “You know, this place has special meaning for me too.  Other than the Howlies, I mean.”

                “Yeah?” Steve ducked his head, fingers tracing circles in the condensation on the bar as he waited for the bartender to come by. “My last memory is coming here after you fell.  This is where I found out I couldn’t get drunk.”

                “Aw, Steve.” Bucky bumped shoulders with him. “That’s why we are here, to give you better memories of London.  _My_ memory of this place is that this is where I realized I was in love with you.”

                Steve made a thoughtful noise.  “What, because of Peggy?” Steve smirked like he was in on a private joke.  The bartender came over and he ordered another round for the table, digging his wallet out of his coat pocket.

                “Yeah, because of Peggy.  What’s that shit-eating grin for?”

                Steve handed over his credit card and leaned against the bar, grin growing wider.  “That wasn’t the first time I wanted to kiss you, but I remember that being the first night that I thought you might want to kiss me too.”

                Bucky started laughing.  “Kiss, hell. I wanted to take you behind the bar and see if I could figure out what all those guys had been up to down at the docks.”

                “It’s not too late,” Steve said, cheeks turning a bit pink as the bartender handed over the receipt with a carefully neutral expression.

                “Yeah, but now we already invited all of these assholes here,” Bucky tilted his head towards their table as he helped Steve carry the drinks.

                “First, you invited them, not me. Second, I’m their boss, I can order them to leave.”

                “Don’t tempt me,” Bucky muttered.

***

                In the middle of the night, Bucky woke up and found himself crouched in the corner of the room, Steve still a soundly sleeping lump in the pile of bedding.   At the time, he just crawled back under the covers next to Steve, but in the morning the security footage showed that he had spent four hours crouched in the corner of the room, knife in hand, as if waiting for an ambush.  He closed the screen and buried his face in his hands, cursing silently.

***

                As Bucky headed back towards the curtain that represented the dubious safety of the dressing room, he was so on edge that he almost punched another model when he didn’t get out of Bucky’s way fast enough.  Sam saw the aborted twitch of his left shoulder and the clenched fist and raised an eyebrow.

                “How ya doing there, Sergei?” He asked warily.

                “How are you enjoying this? Going out there is excruciating.” Bucky leaned against the wall and slide to the floor, more tired from that fifty foot walk than fifty minutes of hand to hand combat.  “It’d be easier if everyone out there was trying to shoot me instead of taking my picture.”

                Sam stooped to put his hands on Bucky’s shoulders, squeezing in sympathy.  “Come on, man, maybe you just gotta change the way you think about it. For me, there are a lot of fine ladies out there. I just pick one, and she’s the one I’m modeling for.” When Bucky rolled his eyes he said, “Hey, hey, none of that now.  Steve’s out there too, watching you. Model this stuff for him.  Right now he’s so stressed out about you because you’re winding yourself up about this that he's like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  You’re not in Hydra anymore.  Not for years.  So don’t let them keep getting in your head like this, ok?”  Sam waited for a moment but Bucky stayed stubbornly silent.  “You think about it, I gotta go walk.”

                Bucky watched him leave, seeing the exact moment he went from Sam Wilson to ‘Andre,’ the change of his gait from military tactical to model swagger, and shook his head.  Sam had always turned down undercover work, preferring more straightforward air support, but Bucky could tell he’d gotten a taste for it now.  Bucky tilted his neck from side to side, wincing as it popped, and sighed.  Sam had a point. Before he could talk himself out of it, he took a few deep breaths, braced himself and got to his feet to finally look in the mirror on the other side of the dressing room.

                He stared for a long minute, trying considering the man in the reflection objectively. He looked…good. Really good.  He’d expected to look faintly ridiculous; maybe not so much lipstick on a hog, but perhaps lipstick on a grizzly.  Glitter on an assault rifle.  Instead, with a good haircut, a clean shave, and Clint’s talented hand with the eyeliner he looked damn sexy. 

                Bucky let a small smile curl his lips, watching as the man in the mirror went from solemnly sexy to sensual.  All this time he’d thought Steve’s visits between shows to play grabass were to check up on him, but now he was starting to think that maybe part of it was that Steve was having a hard time keeping his hands to himself.  He turned to check out his ass in the pants. 

                Oh, yeah.  He made a note to make sure these came home with him.  And also the shirt from yesterday; Steve hadn’t been able to make his eyes go higher than Bucky’s collarbone the whole time he’d had it on.  Before too long it was his time to walk again so he changed clothes and got in line; this time when the anxiety started he reminded himself that Hydra wasn’t out there, _Steve_ was out there.  So as he went through the curtain and faced the camera flashes he thought about stalking towards Steve with the intent to fuck him to tears, to bang him until even with the supersoldier serum he’d be feeling it in the morning, until they were both sore and aching –

                “Guys, I got eyes on Cap and he’s down, I repeat, he’s down for the count. I think he just jizzed in his pants.” Clint’s voice broke Bucky’s concentration and he started to smile when he heard Steve’s defensive denials on the comms.  Since he was at the end of the runway he turned it into a dirty smile and bit his lip coyly, running his hand through his hair, before turning and sauntering back to the dressing room like he had just lowered the boom on a bunch of Hydra assholes.

                “Yeah, I think Steve’s going to need a moment to recover from that.”

                “We’re _all_ going to need a moment to recover from that,” Natasha said with a smile in her voice. “Nice job, James.”

                “I didn’t see it, what happened?” Bucky saw Sam pop his head out from where he was waiting to do a photo shoot.  When he saw Bucky’s grin he mouthed, “You did good?”

                “Barnes just came out and eye fucked the whole crowd,” Clint answered. “I’ve seen porn less intense than that catwalk.”

                “Nice job, Sergei!” Sam said when Bucky came up to get his own photos done. “You’re finally getting into the spirit of things.”  In his excitement Sam gave him a friendly punch to his left arm and regretted it immediately. “Ow,” he said, shaking out his hand. Bucky turned and offered his right arm for him to punch instead.

                “Steve, you alright there man? You didn’t swallow your tongue, did you?”

                “Alright everybody,” Maria said sternly, talking over the ribbing the team was giving Steve. “Save it for later.”  As everyone subsided grumpily Bucky nudged Sam with his elbow.

                “Steve’s gotta work late, wanna get sushi after the show?”

 

                “Thanks for your advice today,” Bucky said an hour later as he grabbed yet another plate off the sushi train.

                “So it helped?” Sam put some wasabi in his tiny bowl and poured soy sauce on it.  “Holy shit, people actually listen to me.”

                Bucky snorted.  “Well, you’re pretty much the most well-adjusted person on the team, so we’d be stupid not to.”

                “That’s true.  Make sure you send that out as a memo when we get back.”  He paused after a bite of sushi and chewed for a moment, studying Bucky intently.  “Alright, in the spirit of handing out good advice,” he said after he swallowed, “I’m gonna lay some wisdom on you then I’m done talking about it because I’m your friend, not your therapist.” He pointed his chopsticks at Bucky.  “You need to learn to love yourself. Ah ah,” he cut Bucky off as Bucky started to protest.  “I mean you need to love your body.  I get it – after what you’ve been through, some, I don’t know what you call it, disassociation maybe – is natural.  I saw it with vets back at the VA who had lots of scarring and prosthetics.  It’s not healthy, but it’s natural. So when we get back, maybe you talk to someone about it, okay?”

                “I hear you,” Bucky said.  “Thanks."

                “No problem, man.”

                They ate in silence, letting the Asian pop music and the noise of the restaurant wash over them for a moment before Bucky spoke again.  “Hey, what kind of undercover mission would you never want to do?”

                Sam snorted. “That’s easy. I would burn SHIELD to the _ground_ if they asked me to be in customer service in the South.  I waited tables for two years while I was going to college in Atlanta and let me tell you, never again.”

                Bucky smiled and grabbed a plate of edamame as it went by.  “Steve said he wouldn’t be able to be one of those Coast Guard rescue swimmers.  Jumping into the cold water all the time, you know?”

                “I bet Tony couldn’t be a spelunker, cuz of the-“

                “Caves,” Bucky finished. “Yeah.”

                “What about Natasha?”

                “Dancer,” Bucky said immediately.

                “Yeah?” Bucky nodded, mouth full of dragon roll.  Sam got a thoughtful look on his face and stared into the distance.  “I know Clint couldn’t go back to a circus gig. Too many bad memories.”

                “What about Bruce?”

                That stumped them both for a while before Sam came up with high school science teacher.  “All those disrespectful, hormonal asshole teenagers? No way he could handle that.  Maria?”

                Bucky wiped his mouth and sat back to take a sip of saki.  “Something where she had to play dumb.  I bet she gets mansplained to all the damn time at SHIELD.”

                Sam started laughing and almost choked on his sushi. “Where in the hell did you learn about _mansplaining_?”

                “Put a sock in it, Sam, I know stuff. Internet stuff,” Bucky said with a fake scowl, kicking Sam under the table.  “Thor. Go.”

                “How in the hell would I know? I feel like he would give everything the old college try,” Sam said as he started stacking up all the empty plates at the edge of the table.  Bucky had to give him that.  Thor probably wouldn’t succeed, but he would try.  “Sharon.”

                “Christ,” Bucky said, finishing off a plate of spicy tuna as he helped Sam straighten the table.  At this point he probably had three times as many plates as Sam on his side of the table and was still feeling like he had room for more.  Maybe Steve would want to go out for dessert.  He hadn’t had an appetite like this since he first saw the words ‘fashion show.’ “That lady is the ultimate professional. I can’t imagine her backing down from anything.”

                “I know she doesn’t like snakes, so maybe one of those rattlesnake church people.”

                Bucky snorted at the mental image of that and started digging out his wallet as the waiter came by.  “Ready to go?”

                “Yeah.” Sam looked at his watch.  “Your boy is probably waiting for you to get back to the hotel.”

                Bucky didn’t bother to fight the smug smile. “Oh, yeah.” He gestured with his phone. “He’s been sexting me for ten minutes now, but I want him to suffer a bit.”

                Sam made a face. “Man, I did not need to know that.”

***       

                The next morning Bucky rolled out of bed feeling great for the first time in weeks.  He knew he hadn’t had an episode in his sleep because he and Steve had spent most of the night going at it until they couldn’t get it up any more, falling asleep at 0400 and sleeping like the dead until the alarm went off at 0630.  He actually joined Steve for a quick run around the city, doing a loop to Buckingham Palace via Trafalgar Square, through the southeast corner of Hyde Park, and over to the British Museum before returning to the hotel.

                So it just figured that it was when Bucky was finally enjoying himself in London that the other shoe would fall. He almost missed a step when he recognized a pair of cold, glittering blue eyes on a woman wearing all white, but he forced himself to walk past her without hesitating.

                “Holy shit was that Emma Frost out there?” Bucky muttered urgently into the communicator as he peeled out of his outfit, redressing quickly in his own clothes.  His fingers brushed over the hilt of the knife in his boot but he still felt terribly naked.

                “Definitely.  I’ve got Darren Cross, Sebastian Shaw, and Ezekiel Stane here too,” Clint said from somewhere in the rafters.  “Mingling all friendly like.”

                “Well, shit.” 

                “You guys sound surprised, did you not get the memo that Villaincon was being held at the O2 this week?”  Clint joked weakly.  

                “This is a more serious turnout than we expected," Maria said, voice flat.  "We need to consider the fact that we might be seriously outnumbered.”  

                There was a long silence on the comms.  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Steve said eventually.  Bucky closed his eyes, pressing his thumbs into his temple, hoping that no one said what they all were thinking.

                “This is a trap.”

                “Shit.  Think we’ve been made?” Sam said, catching Bucky’s eye through the crowd as he waited to go out.  “Tell me quick because I’m about to hit the runway.”

                “I don’t think so,” Nat said slowly.  “No one has been giving any of us a second look.  I was starting to think the intel was bad, but…”

                “Coincidence?”  

                “Nothing’s a coincidence in this business,” Maria said.  

                The comms were quiet for a while as everyone’s mind raced.   “So let’s be clear,” Steve said finally.  “We’ve got credible reports that someone intends to set off a bomb during this event.  And now we have a bunch of A-list criminals in attendance, and none of them seem to know we are here?”

                “This is a trap, but it's not a trap for _us,_ " Clint said, letting out a low whistle in awe. "We’ve stumbled into a high level meeting of bad guys and someone wants to blow it up.”     

                “Well, that certainly complicates matters.  I’ll update London PD,” Sharon said, and then hissed a barely heard “shut up” to something Natasha said in the background.

                “The mission hasn’t changed, except now we have to work harder to avoid suspicion,” Maria said.  “It’s getting close to that attack window, so we have to be extra vigilant looking for anyone trying to place an explosive device.”

                “So what are we going to do about these guys?”

                Maria was silent for a long time.  Bucky knew Steve had an opinion, but while Steve led the team Maria was running the mission, so she had to make the call.  “Nothing,” she said finally, reluctantly.  “First priority is the bomb.  We don’t want to be fighting it out with these targets in the middle of London if we can help it.  Though Natasha, if you want to try to figure out why they are here, I’m not going to stop you.”

                “On it, boss.”

***

                That night Clint was on duty to keep an eye on the venue, with Sharon on the outside and Sam on call.  He picked a spot up high to keep an eye on the back entrance and kicked his heels idly, thinking about what to have for dinner after his watch rotation was over, when his eyes passed over the long pipes that made up the scaffolding for the temporary building. 

                A sudden thought made him narrow his eyes.  He drew his spare knife out of his boot and started tapping on pipes. 

                Tap. _Ting_ , the bar rang.  He carefully climbed to the next set of bars.

                Tap. _Ting._ Tap. _Ting._

                He moved to his left, onto one of the pipes holding up the rafters. Tap. _Tank._

                “Uh oh.”  He did it again. Tap. _Tank._ There was definitely no reassuring ring or buzz of a hollow pipe against his fingertips.   For the rest of the show he moved as far as he could around the rafters and found that about a third of the pipes, mostly the ones that ran vertical and the main struts holding up the roof and the lights, went _tank_ instead of _ting._

                He sat back down at his watch post, mind racing and adrenaline humming under his skin.  “Hey Sharon,” he said through the communicator, eyeing the maze of scaffolding around him that was probably a giant nest of pipe bombs and had been all week.  “You said that none of the bomb sniffer dogs had alerted to anything all week, right?”

                “That’s right.”

                “I think I know why.”

                Sharon put out the word to the rest of the team to assemble and Clint slid down one of the bars to make sure the building was clear when London’s bomb squad arrived.  The front rooms were all clear and he was just about to make an exit himself when he saw light coming from the storage room in the back.  Cursing under his breath, he adjusted the bow on his back and jogged towards the light.

                “Hold it,” a voice rumbled, and light gleamed along the barrel of a pistol as a tall, slender man stepped out of the shadows.

                Clint raised his hands and glanced back and forth from the gun – a nine mil, from the looks of it – to the man holding it. “You know, if you’re trying to threaten me, that gun is going to have to be at least…three times bigger than that,” he said loudly for the benefit of all the people in the back.  By which he means, hopefully the people watching his back.

                The man scowled and gestured with the pistol for Clint to start walking. “Let’s go, funnyman.”

                To his disappointment the man didn’t get close enough for Clint to get the drop on him.  But the conspicuous silence on the comms was reassuring as the goon guided him through the darkened back section of the temporary structure; the only time the team was this quiet was when they were trying not to give away their positions.

                When the goon stopped, there was a split second where Clint thought they might be in the wrong place.  In front of them was a man of average height and indeterminate ethnicity, with medium brown skin and dark hair and eyes.  In Miami they would assume he was Cuban; in Seattle, they would think Filipino.  He was dressed as a day laborer with the ubiquitous brown boots, stained jeans, and plaid shirt.  It was only when he glanced up to study Clint, assessing him with a trained eye, that the disguise fell apart.  From that gaze alone Clint figured Special Forces.  As they stared at each other the man’s hands continued stripping and winding wire with practiced ease.  Clint broke the staring match first and saw that the man had taken apart some of the chairs set up for the fashion show and was lining them with explosives.

                “So I was telling this guy here that I’m just here –“ Clint tried.

                “I know why you’re here.” Clint winced at the flat tone in the man’s voice.  They had been so busy watching the known bad guys in the audience that they had apparently overlooked the unknown bad guys in maintenance.  “I’ve seen you, climbing around in our rafters, watching.  But not quite seeing, were you?” He twirled the knife between his fingers for a moment before sheathing it in his utility belt.  “How many others are there?”

                “We both know I’m not gonna tell you that.  Though I can tell you that if you shoot me, you’re gonna find out.”

                The man nodded thoughtfully, looking strangely unconcerned about being caught.  So unconcerned that Clint started getting more concerned.   Was this guy working with-

                “I suspected as much,” a female voice said lazily on the other side of the room.  “I’ll be mentioning this to Fisk next time I speak with him, this lapse in security is unacceptable.”

                “Ah, shit,” Clint muttered as she stepped into the light.  Emma Frost was wearing the same white gown she’d worn earlier at the show, complemented by a white stole against the chill of London nights.  At her side Sebastian Shaw raised an eyebrow as he took in the tableau.

                “What is all this? Who sent you? The Hellfire Club? The X-Men?” Shaw’s eyes fell on the plastic explosive in the man’s hands.  “Well, unless Professor X has taken the team in a much darker direction, _that_ ’s not the X-Men’s style.”

                The man finished what he was doing and set the chair down, not quite as carefully as Clint would have preferred given the amount of explosive attached to it.  “Neither.  We are the Schola Prima.”

                “Never heard of you,” Frost said dismissively, glancing around the storage room and wrinkling her nose.  “I’ve had enough, let’s go.  I’m not ruining my night with this nonsense _._ ”

                At that, a huge lump in the corner that Clint had taken for some tarp covered construction equipment made a grunting noise and stood up, revealing itself to be a giant man – maybe a giant woman, Clint couldn’t really tell one way or another because it was covered in thick, alligator-like scales, eyes deep set and beady in the snub-nosed face.  The man still holding a gun on Clint made a grunting sound and was suddenly covered in short, sturdy looking spines, like an echidna.

                Clint sighed and let his hands fall to his sides.  It was going to be one of _those_ missions.                 

 

                “Ah shit,” Bucky muttered to Steve as they watched Clint try to edge away from the man holding a gun on him, whose attention had turned to Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw.  “This is one of _those_ missions.”

                “Looks like.” Steve switched on the mic for the comms. “Alright everybody,” he said in a low voice, “the priority is making sure we the detonator.  Anyone got eyes on it? We don’t want this guy bringing the building down on us.”

                “But we don’t know what it looks like,” Natasha pointed out.  Bucky could barely make her out from where she was perched in the scaffolding on the other side of the room.  “Could be a cell phone, could be a box with a big red button on it-“

                “Could be on a timer,” Sharon added unhelpfully, making Bucky give the pole he was holding on to a wary side-eye.  He flicked with his left hand and sighed in relief when it _ting_ ed.

                Below them, edging his way out of the line of fire from where the three members of Schola Prima were squaring off with Shaw and Frost, Clint started patting his pockets like he was looking for something.

                “Clint thinks it’s a cell phone,” Natasha translated. “Which means-“

                And then things went to shit.  The ring leader shouted “ _get out of my head!_ ” with an unhinged fury and what looked like a whip made of white hot fire emerged from his hand and wrapped itself around Frost.  Between one blink and the next, she went from supercilious to enraged, skin hardening to glittering diamond.  She wrapped a hand around the fire whip and yanked, lip curled.  The leader snarled back and stayed on his feet, sending another fire whip singing through the air towards Shaw. Bucky felt the vibration through the poles as the mutant gator strode heavily over to grab Frost.

                Clint did a diving roll out of the light when the spiked guy turned his gun on Shaw, shots ringing out loudly in the enclosed space.  He climbed quickly into the scaffolding next to Natasha and drew his bow, wincing a bit as the gunshots caused feedback in his hearing aids before they adjusted. “Alright Cap, what’s the play?” 

                Below them, Shaw was shrugging off the bullets as he advanced towards the spiky guy.  “Maria, we need to keep the police out of the way for now, we’ve got an active combat situation with mutants of unknown powers.”  Everyone heard Maria’s affirmative and then Steve continued. “Team, as much as I hate to say it, focus on those Schola Prima guys unless Frost or Shaw attacks you.  We need to take them down and find that detonator.”

                “Affirmative.” Clint loosed an arrow at the alligator mutant, who at the moment had Emma Frost in its hands and was squeezing her with a low growling sound.  The arrow lodged in a scale and the gator dude didn’t so much as flinch. “Aww, man.”

                “I’ll look for the detonator,” Sam said, and Bucky felt more than heard him slide down the scaffolding.

                “Also, there’s something important to remember about Shaw,” Sharon said, and then the comm got muffled as she started talking to someone else.  “But I can’t remember what it is.”

                Bucky flailed to catch himself from where he had been just about to drop down on Shaw and fire whip guy, who had wrapped one of his whips around Shaw’s waist and was dragging him away from spikey guy.  “You don’t say?  We just watched him get shot like 12 times and he barely flinched.  Has he got like super healing or something?”

                “No, that’s not it.”

                “Real helpful, Sharon,” Natasha said, and someone on her end made a grunt of pain.

                “He’s not one of our usual targets, he wasn’t in the mission briefing, and I’m working on it,” she said defensively.  “So just be careful.”

                “Yeah, no shit.” Bucky started edging his way through the scaffolding to where the gator thing was shaking Frost like a rag doll.  Judging from the blood streaming down its face, Frost had gotten some good licks in but it was still holding her tight, like it was trying to break through her diamond-like skin through sheer strength.  “Anyone got eyes on the spiky guy?”

                “On it,” Natasha and Clint chorused.

                “Guys, I got another hostile out here! I think I found the detonator but – shit, where’d she go?” Sam sounded a little out of breath. “I’m gonna need back up.”

                “We’ll be there as soon as we can, but we’re a little occupado here, Sam,” Bucky said, and with a muttered prayer to the god of idiots and assholes Bucky drew a pair of knives and jumped onto the gator’s back.  As it staggered under the sudden weight, he drove the knives into thick muscle and scales, trying to climb its back to reach the throat.  The mutant’s only reaction was to give another low growl and reach back to grab Bucky with its free hand.   It managed to get a grip on his leg and threw him across the room, leaving Bucky’s favorite knives in its back.

                “Come back here, you teleporting motherfu-“ Then there was the sound of something, probably Sam, hitting the canvas wall of the structure.

                “Daredevil gave us the intel for this op, didn’t he?” Bucky growled into his comms as he climbed to his feet, the scaffolding behind him bent and twisted.  “When I see that red spandex wearing asshole again I’m going to throw him off a roof.”  He braced himself when he saw the gator lumbering towards him, but an arrow buried itself in the relatively soft skin of its inner thigh and with a buzz of electricity it went to one knee.   Bucky saw his opening and sprinted, vaulting off a work table and driving his left fist right into the mutant’s temple.

                It dropped like a ton of bricks. “Ha,” Bucky said with satisfaction.  Frost managed to land on her feet as it went limp and brushed herself off with jerky, irritated movements, skill still shiny and hard.

                “You’re welcome _,_ ” Clint said over the comms. “Also, I think we’ve figured out what the thing is with Shaw.”

                “Yeah? What’s that?”  Bucky and Frost eyed each other warily before Bucky turned away to get his knives back and check on Steve.   Whatever mutant ability made him immune to bullets did not so much work on the fire whips;  Shaw was covered in long stripes of blistered red skin where fire whip guy was barely holding him off.  Steve was holding back, keeping a wary eye on where fire whip guy was flinging his shit in a room full of an unknown amount of explosives.  His shield was on the ground between them. 

                “Hitting him does no good. Arrows not so much either, he just absorbs the impact and gets stronger.”

                “Seriously?” Bucky stared up at Clint perched in the scaffolding over his head.  “How are we supposed to-“

                “Like this, boys.” Natasha darted in with a baseball slide to Shaw, giving him a long enough touch from her stingers that he went to his hands and knees, stunned.  She stood and brushed off her pants. “There are other ways to solve problems than punching them into submission.”

                Steve took advantage of Shaw's distraction to stomp on the rim of his shield and hit fire whip guy in the face, who flew backwards into a pile of chairs.  For a split second everyone in the room went still, wondering how many of those chairs had explosives attached to them, before they all relaxed. 

                “You can cancel the backup that I’m _sure_ is on its way,” Sam said into the sudden silence. “I have the detonator. Burner phone, just like we thought. I also have one unconscious teleporter who is going to have a hell of a headache when she wakes up.”

                With a growl, Shaw put his hand on his knee and climbed back to his feet, murder in his eyes.  Steve stepped in front of him when he started to go for the unconscious ringleader. “I’m not going to let you do that, Shaw,” he said.  Shaw’s eyes flickered down at the shield on Steve’s arm and he sneered.  Bucky flexed the fingers on his left hand and the arm whirred and recalibrated menacingly.  He might not be able to punch Shaw but he’d be more than happy to choke a bitch if he tried to start something.

                “Sebastian, enough,” Frost called out from the other side of the room.  She scowled down at the burnt holes in her clothing.  “This has taken up enough of our time.”

                “Very well.”  Shaw straightened his jacket and ostentatiously turned his back on everyone to follow Frost out of the building.  Clint made a rude gesture as they left.

                “So we’re just going to let them go?” Sharon said over the comms.  Even though the mission targets were all safely contained and most of them were unconscious, watching two repeat contestants for America’s Most Wanted walk away felt like a defeat.

                “Yes,” Maria cut in. “Tell the police to let them pass.  We’ll send a report to Dr. Xavier and Mr. Summers, and that’s all we can do for now.”

                At the all clear, Sharon and Maria gave the go-ahead for Scotland Yard to come in and secure the premises, using the mag-cuffs helpfully provided by SHIELD.  For the gator guy/gal they just ended up keeping them sedated until they found an adequate containment cell; ditto for the teleporter that ambushed Sam in the storage room.  Everyone watched the police carry everyone out of the room and rope off the whole structure for the bomb squad to deal with.

                "Well, I guess that's the end of it."  Clint turned to Bucky and raised his hand for a high five. “Well done, Zoolander!” 

                Bucky just stared at him in confusion. “Who the hell is Zoolander?”

 

 

AFTER CREDITS SCENE

 

                Despite Clint’s best efforts, he wasn’t able to get Steve and Bucky to sit down in front of the TV for movie night until everyone was back in New York.  He dropped exactly two polite hints – polite by his definition, Nat just stared at him and shook her head – before he just dropped by with the DVD and a case of craft beer for the two assholes to drink most of and not get drunk.

                As the credits rolled Clint muted the TV and looked at the two expectantly.

                Steve shook his head at him, disappointed. "Seriously, Clint? You really thought showing Bucky a movie about someone who was brainwashed into being an assassin was a good idea?"

                "But- I mean, it-" Clint stuttered, suddenly feeling lower than dirt. "I didn't mean to-"

                Bucky stood up and started collecting empty bottles.  "He's just giving you a hard time, Barton, we both enjoyed the movie."

                Clint slumped in relief when Steve cracked a grin.  “Such a dick,” he muttered as Steve started cleaning up as well.

 

 

AFTER AFTER CREDITS SCENE, WHEN YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE LEFT IN THE THEATER BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE LEFT FOR SOME REASON 

 

                "Two orange mocha frappucinos for...Backy?"

                "I'm trusting you on this Barton," Bucky scowled down into his coffee cup, not sure why it appeared to have more whipped cream than coffee in it.  "I'm really not sold on what they've done to coffee these days."

                "Don't start, I get enough of the 'back in my day' noise from Steve. Just try it." Clint wove his way to through the crowd to the last remaining table.  “So you seem to be doing better these days.”

                Bucky glared at the man next to them until he moved his chair enough for Bucky to sit down. “Yeah, I am. Therapist says that part of the problem was probably scopophobia, a fear of -"

                "Scopes, duh." Clint took the lid off his cup to take a sip of his frappucino and gave himself a whip cream mustache.

               "-Being stared at," Bucky finished, narrowing his eyes at Clint's look of innocence. He took a sip of his frappucino, and made a face at the taste before taking a second sip and putting the drink down.  "Alright I wanted to ask you a question, in all seriousness."  He leaned forward to put his elbows on the table.

                Clint sat back in his chair, crossing his arms and focusing his attention on Bucky. "Go for it." 

                "How do I do smoky eyes? Whenever I try to do it myself, well...” He scowled at the memory of trying to figure out liquid eyeliner and the effort it had taken to get it off.

                "Yeah, I've seen the surveillance footage."

                Bucky kicked him under the table. “Fuck you, Barton, that’s grease paint, it’s supposed to look that way.”

                Clint raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Excuse me, but from one sniper to another, the only excuse for that much grease paint is melodrama, so don’t give me that bullshit.”

                “'One sniper to another?' C’mon Clint.  What kind of range do you have on that bow, like 50 feet?”

                “Fuck you, Barnes.  I _could_ use a rifle, but a rifle is too easy, the scope practically does all the work for you-"

[ ](http://ellebeesknees.tumblr.com/post/161504446407/lenadraws-another-of-my-contributions-for-the)

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr, I'm on it](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dracusfyre)


End file.
